Despite Court Order, Israel Won’t Let Journalists Into Gaza

Israel’s long-standing ban on foreign journalists entering the Gaza Strip has made accurate and up-to-date reporting on the now week-long war among the most difficult propositions in the modern era. Most stories rely on official reports from Hamas, the United Nations, and the Israeli government.

But even that appears to have been wishful thinking as the Israeli military and foreign ministry engage in an unprecedented level of information control, as it is being reported today that though the crossings were briefly opened to allow foreigners to flee from the strip, they still wouldn’t let any journalists in.

If everything is, as Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said, “completely as it should be” in the Gaza Strip. the decision to bar journalists not just from the strip, but from getting anywhere near the strip, would send an even more troubling message about the Israeli government’s almost crazed obsession with restricting the media. That, or it is simply worried about letting the world see what Minister Livni’s view of Gaza as it should be actually looks like.